Health & Fitness
Blog: Phony Forum's Fuzzy Math
A blogger looks at the money spent on Carroll County's PlanMaryland forum.
Three months have passed since Richard Rothschild and his hack Jim Simpson put together their little demonstration of using taxpayers as underwriters for the Phony Forum they put on at the Pikesville Hilton in an attempt to stop PlanMaryland with voodoo science. I have patiently awaited an accounting of the expenses and receipts for this charade as I was repeatedly told by senior level County staff that they didn’t have sufficient documents to turn over for my Public Information Act (PIA) request.
To staff’s credit, some patience was due as bills continued to trickle in through December 2011. I would rather know that I have all the facts in hand before drawing any conclusions from the total invoices and contributions. The passage of three months is an adequate time to assume both bills and donations are now in the County's hands.
However, the County Comptroller has not replied to my recent e mails nor returned telephone calls to ask for clarification on just what the paid bills purchased and whether any documents might have been overlooked by staff. Frankly, the items for expenses paid to suppliers are not clearly indicated on the bills but the amounts certainly are.
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What I now have the public can make their own conclusions from:
- Only one Commissioner made a contribution towards the expense of the event or even paid the minimal $25.00 entry fee select citizens were
required to pay: Dave Roush wrote a check for $100.00 - The Pikesville Hilton charged for use of its facilities $4465.00
- Lunch for the Commissioners, the speakers, those who paid $25 to enter
and those allowed in for free cost $1368.44 although the charge is not clearly specified on the bill. - The Artful Gourmet Deli in Owings Mills for what appears to be a food expense at $242.00 but if that was for the luncheon they truly did get a bargain. But then what was that $1368.44 for?
Maybe Comptroller Burk will tell you what he won’t take the time to explain to me. - Wolf Professional Security LLC charged for 3 offices to make sure
no one got rowdy: $675.00 - The big donor of the day was We the People of Maryland for $5000.00 total via two checks. There are a total of 29 people who paid the $25 admittance and / or made a donation in that amount or more for a total gate of $1850.00
- 129 people attended the forum including 4 of the Kommish, 13 county and state staff members and the 5 illustrious speakers. Too bad for the 29 citizens that had to pay to get in.
- Speaker Wendell Cox billed the County $1279.20 for parking, airfare and his speaking fee ($1000.00).
- An unidentified person received an airfare reimbursement of $522.70
- Speaker David Braddy received an airfare reimbursement of $323.70
- Of the 59 souls placed on the waiting list to get in, only 17 attended. One of those souls donated $250.00 to the cause.
- Miscellaneous meals were $101.50 and equipment rental was $72.00
- There were 11 contributors acknowledged by name on a sign located
at the entrance to the forum. There are check receipts for only five of
them, some for as little as the price of admission. That makes me wonder what the other 5 did to get their name in lights, including the Carroll County
Farm Bureau. Pity for the ones who actually did write checks. - Apparently speakers Lawd Christopher Monckton, Moffit and Frigon
generously appeared and spoke without charging a speaking fee or being reimbursed for any travel expenses. At least that’s what all of the documents the Kounty turned over to me say by virtue of an absence of a payment to any of the three. Surely that $522 airfare can be attributed to one of them. - The inconclusive bottom line is that it appears the Phony Forum cost $9047.00 and that the collection plate brought in $6850.00 as a
combination of donations and entry fees (of which We the People gave $5000). Which indicates that the taxpayers of Carroll underwrote $2197.00 for this huge waste of time. - Commissioner Robin Frazier billed the County taxpayers $49.50 in mileage reimbursement for travelling to the Forum and a preparatory meeting for it a day before the event.
- No doubt, this is the first instance in the history of the County for which its Commissioners charged their own citizens an admittance fee to attend one of their meetings (yes, 4 Commissioners do make a quorum), not to mention the little fact that it required them to drive to another county to attend it.
Personally, I am not comfortable with either the expense or income figures provided to me by the Comptroller’s office. There may be a considerable sum missing from the expense column in airfare reimbursement and speaker fees. That makes me skeptical about the accounting of the fees collected at the door and whether all of the donations are accounted for, particularly when it appears that possible donations from half of the sponsors listed by the County cannot be accounted for.
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I believe the County Comptroller owes the citizens he works for a more accurate
accounting of this event and citizens shouldn’t have to drag it out of him via
PIA requests. Please note that my accounting does not place a value on all of the time spent by Rothschild’s Special Assistant Kathy Fuller and the county’s media hack Jim Simpson, both of whom worked on this forum project almost full time for weeks, plus the time spent on the project by other County staff.